After heroin overdoses, police search for source of drugs

WASHINGTON – A rash of drug overdoses and two deaths have area police searching for the source.

Nine people overdosed on heroin in the Culpeper, Spotsylvania and Fredericksburg areas during the week of May 13. Two of them subsequently died.

Police are now searching for the source of what they call a “lethal” dose of the drug.

Culpeper Police Chief Chris Jenkins is calling it a serious public health issue, since those who buy the illegal drug have no idea how or with what the drug is mixed.

Culpeper County Sheriff’s Lt. Jason Romero says the heroin may be very potent.

“The heroin is notoriously impure – it’s made in someone’s back room,” says Romero. “It could have been cut with any number of things. Whatever it was, was particularly potent and particularly lethal.”

A 26-year-old man died in Spotsylvania County from a heroin overdose on May 14. Another man died in Culpeper County on May 15. Several of the other seven people who overdosed with heroin during that week came close to dying, but were revived.

Police say in most of the cases, the heroin was injected. They are asking anyone with information about heroin trafficking in that area of Virginia to call the Culpeper County Public Safety Center at 540-727-7900.